Dissertation

Uncovering the ingredients for planet formation

This thesis discusses the physical and chemical processes than influence the composition of forming planets.

Author: Bosman, A.D.
Date: 08 October 2019
Links: Thesis in Leiden Repository

This thesis discusses the physical and chemical processes than influence the composition of forming planets. The focus is on the effect of these processes on the abundance and distribution of moleculus in the birth places of planets, proto-planetary disks. The thesis further discusses how current and future observations can be used to quantify the effects of these processes. A good grasp of these processes will enable researchers to link the composition of (exo)planets to their formation origin. Specifically this thesis studies the the most abundant carbon and oxygen carrying molecules, CO, CO2 and H2O. Chemical modelling of CO indicates that conversion of CO into other molecules needs to be fast to explain the current observations. Study of the transport and distribution of CO2 indicate that the measured the CO2 abundance in the surface layers of disks is not bulk CO2 abundance. The power of spectroscopic CO observations in the infrared to find physical structures in disks, possibly created by planets is also discussed. Finally, a combination of infrared observations is used to show that the closest proto-planetary disk is poor in molecules that contain carbon and oxygen, indicating that a process is removing these molecules from the gas phase.